Frugal Groceries: Home-made Cinnamon Roll Edition!

Holiday Grocery Bills

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Guest post by FDL, BSN

It’s the holidays.  Every year, from Thanksgiving through December, that’s my excuse/reason for  many things.  On this particular topic, groceries, it’s the reason I am blowing this part of my spending plan.

Here’s the bad:

• I had extra mouths to feed the entire week of Thanksgiving.
• I had to prepare a portion of the big Turkey day meal.
• I had  extra dinner guests one evening in addition to my visiting family.
• I make thousands (I might be exaggerating) baked goods for gifts.

The Ugly:

• The never ending mess in my kitchen.

The Good:

• Family and Friends-what it’s all about, huh!
• I only had to do a portion of the Turkey Day meal-yeah for pitching in!
• I went with seasonal items that were at great prices. Can you say Sweet Potato in how many versions?
• Christmas Gifts and dessert-a twofer! A tremendous amount of our gift giving is in the form of home-baked goods, namely cinnamon rolls. Holiday dessert and gifts all at the same time!
• Bulk Buying. Because I make the same baked goods every year, I stock up on the ingredients at bulk prices and sales.

How To Make Your Own Home-made Cinnamon Rolls:

The true confessions of an over-zealous cinnamon roll holiday baker.  Read it here….

Homemade goods are a better choice than gift cards and other mindless presents this time of year.  But baking can wreak havoc with my grocery bill if I don’t plan for it.

Since I’ve gone on about how wonderful they are, I’ll share my secret recipe:

Cinnamon Roll Recipe!

I start with freshly ground whole wheat dough that I use for bread making(that’s another post.)

I make a paste of melted butter, cinnamon, sugar and vanilla extract.  No, I don’t know the exact proportions-adjust till it looks right….

After I roll the dough into a rectangle, the size of which varies every time, I spread the cinnamon paste in a thin layer over the dough, roll it all up, jelly roll like, and cut into rounds.

I dip the rounds into melted butter, place in a pan, let rise awhile (twenty minutes or so-longer the cooler your room temp), then bake until done.  Top with a powdered sugar glaze.

For  gift giving, I send a separate container of the glaze.  It’s a mixture of powdered sugar, dry milk powder, vanilla and water I put in inexpensive plastic containers,bought by the dozens.

As you can tell, like most bakers, trial and error and making adjustments on the fly is common.

The directions: Re-heat then add the glaze.

For holiday giving, I freezer bag the c. rolls, and place in Christmas gift bags.

I used to leave them in a disposable aluminum pan, cover with plastic wrap, with a bow on top.  I discovered that cooled c. rolls in a freezer bag are easier to give and to store.

This fresh bread dough does not keep well for long at room temp.  Without preservatives, they need to be eaten or frozen.  I’ve been told some of the recipients count them out and divide them  to make sure they get their fair share….

They are best eaten while warm, fresh from the oven, while the kitchen is filled with the heavenly aroma they create-not that I ever snitch one, no way…..

My c. rolls are not especially healthy as they have loads of butter and sugar.  With the freshly ground, whole grain bread dough, I like to call them a ‘better choice’ for special occasions.

Increasing your spending on groceries is not a bad thing when you are decreasing your spending elsewhere to balance it out.  It’s the balancing that’s most important….

Happy Holidays, and if you’re in the neighborhood and smell the Cinnamon Rolls, stop by and say hey!

Reader Questions:

Do you have a favorite home-made item you give at Christmas?

 

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Tags: a healthy cinammon roll recipe, cinammon roll recipe, how to decrease spending on holiday gifts, using whole wheat dough for cinammon rolls

This entry was posted on Monday, December 19th, 2011 at 6:00 am and is filed under personal finance, Quality of Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.